Claws of Truth

A New Beginning

This chapter is a little longer than the last one. Enjoy!

-G

"Abomination. Rise!" Amity shouted, her hand pushed out in a stance of power. A purple glooping humanoid monster emerged from the ground, its beady red eyes piercing into the soul of Amity's opponent. Dark purple muck dripped from its extremities as it hoisted itself out of the large circle Amity created on the ground. The creature wailed and roared as it brought itself to an upright position, causing the surrounding area to tremor from the bone rattling reverberations. Amity smirked as the wind blew through her shoulder length green and brown streaked hair.

"Amity, is it really necessary to have your abomination roar like that? It just seems so over dramatic."

"Oh come on Willow. You have to exhibit some display of power. Just because your plants can't roar doesn't mean you can chastise me about my abomination doing it. And you can't tell me it isn't at least a little badass." Amity crosses her arms.

"Alright," Willow giggled, "maybe it's a little cool. But I can have my own flair, even if it isn't roaring. Check this out!"

Willow tossed a seed from her pocket which landed in front of the towering abomination looming over her. Her eyes flashed green and she threw her hands up into the air.

In a potent display of magic, vines whipped out of the ground where the seed landed. The thorn covered growth twisted and twirled in a mesmerizing display of greens and browns in front of Willow. The vines cracked like a whip in a terrifying display of dominance against Amity's creature of the lagoon.

"It could use some work." Amity's said with a smirk. She uncrossed her arms and took a fighting stance. "Abomination! Attack Willow's roots!" She pointed towards the vortex of vines, still swirling and snapping in a feisty frenzy.

"I don't know Amity, I think you should do a little attacking of your own roots first, if you know what I mean!" A voice called from aside the battlefield.

Yes, Amity recently began letting her natural brown hair shine through. It was one of the things that made her stand out among others, and more importantly, to herself. For the longest time she felt as though there was something about herself which was left untapped. Something which she was desperately missing to make herself feel whole. A few months ago she decided to bite the bullet and try letting portions of her brown hair grow out. She only had two sections of brown streaking from her hairline back to the tip of her ponytail, but it was those two little lines of chocolate brown which gave her a sense of completion.

Now, just because she felt better because of this, did not mean that she wasn't open to a bit of pure hearted friendly ridicule. And leave it up to the Boiling Isles' resident human to take the shot almost every time the opportunity presented itself.

"Luz, I swear! If you keep that up, this abomination will be coming straight for your head!" Amity's amber eyes locked on Luz's smiling face from across the homemade battlefield. While there was the slightest twinge of pain when one of her friends would say something about her hair, it never presented itself when Luz would say something. Which was great because she was usually the one to bring it up. But how could Amity just shrug off a playful insult and not push back, even a little? She could never let Luz have the one up. That's just not how the witch ever worked.

"Oooh, you'd better watch out, Luz. That's the glare of a griffin eying its prey..." Gus nudged Luz with his elbow.

Ah, Gus. The one who practiced magic with the most mystery and misdirection was, oddly enough, the most open and direct out of everyone. The boy would spill his guts to the world and nobody would be even the slightest bit surprised at the stories, feelings, and life events which would come pouring out. For someone who could magically elude anyone without breaking a sweat, he couldn't save face to save his life.